Product Description

This game reached an honorable 3rd place in the Hippodice Design Competition
2000 under the title "Drunter oder Drber" (Over or Under). A classic
trick-taking card game with a few twists: you must follow suit, highest
cards wins the trick, and a Joker changes the color of trump. The game
becomes interesting because players must suppress a card before the
game. The sum of suppressed cards determines the type of round played,
either Plus or Minus--that is whether the winner is the player who took
the most tricks or one with the fewest tricks. Following the second
trick one of hidden cards is revealed after each subsequent trick,
slowly revealing what the players are playing after. The game proves
once again that small changes can create new interesting variations of
the classic mechanism.

Product Reviews

My family loves trick-taking games. This game introduced a real challenge: should you be trying to take tricks, or avoiding them?

It puts a real twist on the strategy. I often found myself assuming that I should take tricks, only to be surprised later in the hand.

Interestingly, once the true goal is discovered, the player who is currently losing may change the trump suit. This makes each hand exciting down to the final card.

The illustrations on the cards are bizarre, and yet strangely intriguing. And for reasons beyond my comprehension, we enjoy the game much more when everybody speaks in a bad German accent. 'Sprechen sie deutch?'

John McCallion
(Games Magazine)

December 31, 2001

Four colored suits with cards numbered 0 to 12 are shuffled and dealt. Play starts with everyone discarding a card facedown, influenced by their expectation of winning many or few tricks. Shuffle the discards into a pile. With red as trump, traditional trick-taking rounds follow. A facedown card is revealed at the start of the second and subsequent rounds. The total of the discards announces whether most or fewest tricks wins! You might get back on course four tricks before the end--the trailing player can change the trump color. Fast and fun!

Alan How
(Counter Magazine)

May 31, 2001

Will you win with the most or fewest tricks? This is exactly the question
posed by the game designer. The title is "On the wrong track" in English and
arises from the uncertainty as to whether the aim of a round of cards is to
lose or win tricks.

The cards are straightforward -- four sets of 0-12 in four colours -- and
you begin by placing one of your cards in the middle of the table. In the
four-player game all cards are dealt, so there is perfect information about
the cards apart from the cards that you and your opponents have just played
into the middle. After the second trick, these cards are revealed one at a
time at the end of each round, until the last trick of these cards is known.
The value of these cards determines whether everyone is trying to win or lose
tricks. For example, in the 4 player game if these cards total over 23
points, the round is about winning tricks; below this, the round is won by
the fewest number of tricks. By the time you know of course, you are into the
sixth trick, so you may play conservatively, by picking up one trick or more
aggressively by trying to win or lose tricks. Of course, by going for one
extreme, you will probably have played a 0 or 1 (to make the chances higher
that the face down cards add up to 23 or lower, but this will have weakened
your hand). The reverse is true for high cards.

Each round lasts only a few minutes, when the winner of the round scores
points and the other places score a lower number of points.

A final twist in the game is that after 8 tricks the person in last place can
change trumps to another colour. If all this sounds a touch random, I'd
agree, but since the game is simple and quick, it has a certain charm and you
feel that the next round may see a change in your fortunes. This produces a
level of addictiveness that will ensure Auf falsche Fährte joins the group
of card games that fill the opening or closing slot of many game sessions. Light, but fun.

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